I always have to resist the urge to impulse buy these RPGs, because I sometimes find out that either I or the genre has moved on enough that I don't get much out of them.

Speaking of which, I am aware that I somehow own Divinity: Original Sin - Enhanced Edition. I bought the original version when it came out, and thought it was pretty okay, but again...I don't know if it was a bit too open for my tastes or too buggy, too much cockpunching or whatever, but I only put about 10 hours in it. I think for whatever reason they gave away the Enhanced Edition for free if you had the original. So the question is....any comments on the Enhanced version? I can feel I am talking myself into installing it.

Never, ever assume someone that short and fat has their shit together. - Schild

The thing about enhanced editions (and this one specifically) is that they tend not to be groundbreaking or game-changing in any way.

If you hated or were meh about the original, you'll feel exactly the same way about the EE.

I got that new Divinity and 2 hours in it was such a carbon copy of previous versions it just wasn't worth my time. I think what was meant to be groundbreaking there was the multiplayer, which, of course, I didn't get to work with.

That said, it's a free install costing you nowt but time. May as well give it a bash ?

And I don't recall exactly being "meh" about the original. I think the problem was that for me, NWN was my first real intro into D&D gaming or rules, and it held your hand. Things have only just gotten dumbed down even more in gaming over the years. So then a game like Divinity comes along and calls for some thinking that was way out of the normal box I was used to playing in. Not a bad thing, but a significant hurdle nonetheless. Then something else inevitably comes along and my ADD kicks it.

But yeah, I think I just talked myself into it.

Never, ever assume someone that short and fat has their shit together. - Schild

And I don't recall exactly being "meh" about the original. I think the problem was that for me, NWN was my first real intro into D&D gaming or rules, and it held your hand. Things have only just gotten dumbed down even more in gaming over the years. So then a game like Divinity comes along and calls for some thinking that was way out of the normal box I was used to playing in. Not a bad thing, but a significant hurdle nonetheless. Then something else inevitably comes along and my ADD kicks it.

But yeah, I think I just talked myself into it.

Installed it, started playing it with an Xbox controller, because why not give that a go, can always switch back. After the first intro fight, I hit a shoulder button and the whole thing crashes. Um, cool. Might try again next weekend. Probably not.

Never, ever assume someone that short and fat has their shit together. - Schild

I'll admit I got sucked in by the setting and bought the new AC: Odyssey game. It's decent so far, though combat is a hair clunky.

Did you play the previous one, Origins? They revamped the combat from the first batch of games and it definitely felt clunky for the first 10 hours. I'm wondering if Odyssey feels different from Origins.

Grabbed Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk over the weekend. It's...ok. I don't hate it, and I'm going to press on because it's a NIS title, hoping that something unlocks to make things click for me. I think I'm near the end of the gnome dungeon. Skills being tied to pacts is probably my biggest turnoff; choosing to use one skill instead of 2-3 attacks almost always seems like a bad call. This makes most battles just "Press X to autoattack" and seems to kill all character customization. I also wish I could make notes or something on the map, to remember which keys open which doors/chests. All in all it feels worse than Etrian Odyssey so far; hopefully a mid/late game unlock fixes things.

I don't think I'd even heard of this until now. I like that I can play as the Genestealers, but it's still a GW pc game, so I will wait for the Xmas sale on Steam, so the bugs can be worked out, and get it cheaper.

Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.

I don't think I'd even heard of this until now. I like that I can play as the Genestealers, but it's still a GW pc game, so I will wait for the Xmas sale on Steam, so the bugs can be worked out, and get it cheaper.

I'd had a look myself from various sources and while it looks prettier and nicer than Ascension, the genestealer playstyle looked fairly naff, so I wasn't really sold on it anyway.

Did you play the previous one, Origins? They revamped the combat from the first batch of games and it definitely felt clunky for the first 10 hours. I'm wondering if Odyssey feels different from Origins.

No, I haven't touched an AC game since the original. However, I cannot quite put my finger on it, but the combat still feels familiar for some reason - as if I'd played something similar recently.

I'll live - I love the setting enough to power through any combat oddness. It's fun so far.

Fear the Backstab!"Plato said the virtuous man is at all times ready for a grammar snake attack." - we are lesion"Hell is other people." -Sartre

Still digging the heck out of Horizon Zero Dawn. Played the heck out of it last week on vacation. Coincided nicely that it was an 'unplug everything and ditch all responsibilities' week for me (unplugging not extended to entertainment devices, of course!).

Great immersion, I love games that are just fun to exist in. It feels a lot like a more consoley Elex. Better combat, less jank. I enjoyed Elex a lot, so this is a good thing.

I also developed a strong like of the PS4's standby implementation. Being able to turn on the device and be in the game in a few seconds, right where I left off, is pretty nifty. And having it play nice with media apps (so the current game is suspended, rather than shut down) is extra nifty.

edit: oh, and the 1080p supersampling of the PS4 pro is legit. With all the grass, trees and stuff like bowstrings, not a damned jaggy anywhere to be seen. Nice!

14.3 hours per day if you assume a 7 day work week. 16.6 hours per day if you assume a six day working week.So including commutes thids will leave you literally no time to do anything except work. No grocery shopping no housekeeping/washing your clothes. I'd probably be too tired to even shower.After a few weeks of this it would be a surprise if anyone were even able to form a coherent sentence let alone write any code or do any productive work.

keep in mind that this is Rockstar a company that has so much money that they could probably delay the release of RDR2 by a decade and still make a profit on it.

As someone who just came off 14 hour days, 7 days a week for about a month, I can attest that it's pretty rough. Without my wife to take care of those chores Jeff mentioned I'm not sure how I would have managed, and that's with only a 10 minute commute. Note: I do not work in game/software development.

The last time I had to do something like that for a prolonged period of time me and my colleague got to a point were we were unable to drive back to our hotel and to the dinner reservation we had made with the team. Even though it was the same location we had been going to for the last week.

We couldn't even remember the address or names, were unable to talk coherently or comprehend how the car GPS worked and at one point stopped and took an half hour break at the side of the road because we were absolutely unable to do any higher brain functions let alone operate a motor vehicle.

I once did a month-long stretch of 18-hour days, 7-days a week culminating in a work Friday that started at 8 am that Friday and ended when I told my bosses "this site ain't going up today" on Saturday morning at 11 am. I was literally falling asleep at my keyboard in the midst of FTPing HTML files to the server and had no mental capacity to do anything. It's lucky that I did not crash my car on the way home where I promptly slept for 8 hours straight, woke for a few hours then started again at noon that Sunday until about 2 am the next day.

No human should have to work those hours doing anything. It is fucking wasted time after the 12th straight hour or so.

Still delving into the Labyrinth of Refrain, and then lots of Soulcalibur 6 which turned out amazing if you are a fan of the series. Lots of single player stuff, cool character creation tool, and of course multiplayer is great.

Spent about 12 hours last weekend determining the fates of the 60 folks who departed on the Obra Dinn, none of whom were alive on board when the ship returned to port.

From Lucas Pope (Papers, Please), Return of the Obra Dinn is a game of deduction, providing you with a journal with crew and passenger manifest, route map, deck plans, sketches of people, and a magical pocket watch which allows you to observe the moment of a person's depth. Your job: determine the identity and fate of all 60 crew and passengers. The game gives you all the information you need and I highly recommend avoiding spoilers or walkthroughs.

On top of all that, it's presented in glorious 1bpp stippled rendering, reminiscent of classic macintosh games (but rendered realtime), which is nifty.